Create a directory with catalog merge

I love the catalog merge feature in Publisher. It's a powerful tool to help small businesses create catalogs of their products and services quickly and cheaply. The bonus is that the catalog merge feature isn't just for catalogs; you can use it to make directories as well. Let me give you an example.

For instance, let's say I'm a small Information Technology company creating a proposal for a potential client. In addition to the details of the proposal, I also want to add listings for each of the five members of my team. For that part of my publication I'm going to use catalog merge.

First, I create all the text and graphics for the proposal.

In the Page Navigation pane, I right-click on the two-page spread for pages 4 and 5 and select Insert Page then, I choose to add two pages.

[Note: If you start off by using one of the Catalog templates, you'll have to go through slightly different process when you insert pages. Instead of the Insert Page dialog you will see this:

I recommend that you click the More button to get to the Insert Page dialog.]

Then I click the Insert tab and select Catalog Pages.

Now I start the catalog merge process. On the Catalog Tools tab, I click Add List, select the correct list, and click OK.

In the Layout group, I pick one of the designs from the gallery.

Add the text and picture fields from the Insert group.

Click Merge to New to create your proposal complete with the directory.

And finally, I click Save this publication in the Catalog Merge pane and give my proposal a file name.

Now I ask you, what other uses of the Catalog Merge feature can you think of? Let me know in the comments and thanks for checking in!

-- Bob deLaubenfels